ABSTRACT
Throughout the writing of this book, we have consulted colleagues in various countries about their experiences of iatrogenic damage and their impressions about how we are handling the material we have gathered. On the whole, fellow professionals readily identified with our observations and felt it important and courageous (or did they mean foolhardy?) to break the silence surrounding this virtually taboo subject. There were, however, recurring criticisms that we felt required consideration both in our revisions of the manuscript and in explicit elucidation here before we conclude our observations in the next chapter. Such critical and opposing views served to correct our own perceptions, to complicate our own thinking, and to tease out, both for ourselves and for our audience, the hitherto unspoken, perhaps only half-realized bases on which our assumptions have been built.
